Chris-K

Until August 2, they're having a promotion in which if you buy select DVDs or Blu-rays, you'll get 30% off 3, or 50% off 5. I've just ordered seasons 1-5 of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the grand total came to US$52.49.

As usual, watch out for the sneaky third-party sellers who are a few pennies cheaper, they're not included, I had to go back for season 3 because of that, I think Amazon's price was about 20 cents more.

I also tried putting season 6 into my cart along with seasons 1-5, and that came up 50% off too.

http://www.amazon.it/b/ref=amb_link_...d_i=B008HYKH8Q

DJariya

The Star Trek sets you speak of are Region coded. Region B

Navinabob

Why So Blu?

If you're region free, which everyone should be at this point, then that's a good deal.

Chris-K

Blu-ray.com claims they're region-free. I've been BD region-free for a little over a year now.

PhantomStranger

As far as I know, every television season of Star Trek and its sister shows are region-free on Blu-ray. That is certainly true for the British and German versions. I imagine the Italian BDs are similar.

PhantomStranger

Paramount/CBS owns Star Trek everywhere, which is why they don't care about locking it.

BambooLounge

Thanks for posting. Didn't use the promo for Star Trek, but did pick up 4 titles that haven't been released stateside yet and 1 twilight time title:

Christine
Clockers
Escape from Alcatraz
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Servant

In total (~$36.25USD), got them for less than the price Christine would've cost me from Twilight Time upon release after S&H.

Mike86

Tempted to pick up the seventh season as I haven't yet, but having all the US versions of the other six seasons plus the movie discs I'd be annoyed with having one that didn't match (even though I know its just the text on the case and probably the discs).

Ringmaster

I wish the Star Trek OS were as cheap as the Next Gen sets. All 3 sets for 60 bucks seems OK but not good enough.

masetodd

Damn - great pricing, but I don't think I can get past the all-Italian text on the boxes. I assume there's an English dub on the discs, but fighting through the menus in Italian might be annoying also.

I'd buy them in a heartbeat if they were priced $10-$15 each here in the States.

PhantomStranger

Supposedly the Star Trek Next Generation sets have sold terribly on Blu-ray.

The menus are almost certainly in English after you pick your language option when the disc is inserted into the player. Most European region-free sets are authored that way.

andicus

One caveat... If you use a Sony player (including the PS3) these sets may not work due to 50Hz issues.

I'm not sure, in this case, because they were originally done for US, so would have been 30fps. Do they convert them to 25fps for 50Hz countries?

I know this is a problem with TV content that originated in the UK, but I'm not sure whether that applies to content originating in the US. I would expect so.

PhantomStranger

No, that won't be a problem. The video will be identical to the American Blu-rays. Hollywood-made content doesn't get that treatment in Europe. That is limited mostly to European productions that never existed in anything but 1080i/50Hz video.

andicus

So do PS3s in Europe do 60-50hz conversion?

That's why I thought they may go to 25fps.

emachine12

Nearly all TVs in Europe can handle 50hz and 60hz, no conversion necessary.

PS3s outside North America offer and handle both 50hz & 60hz.

Paramount makes one "master copy" for Europe and that gets packaged as needed for that region. Which is why a disc from Italy has all of the certification stickers from all of Europe. Same for Germany, UK, Spain, etc.

Warner Brothers does this too as it keeps costs down.

andicus

Interesting. Thanks!

And also, FU Sony for not letting us have 50hz in N. America.

Mike86

Odd that they released them all plus the movie discs if they didn't sell. Maybe they overproduced.

emachine12

They didn't overproduce, they overestimated the fanbase who wanted HD remasters of TNG. They spent quite a chunk of money to satisfy that fanbase which meant the sets in the US had to have very high SRPs to break even. This formula resulted in less than stellar sales and excess unsold stock.

PhantomStranger

What happens is that the studio spends a boatload of money on restorations and then overprices the BD release to compensate. Apparently the ST: TNG restoration cost $15 million. Not mentioned of course is that the cost was mostly expensed under the syndication deal and so any BD sales were gravy.

This type of accounting has killed classic television sales on Blu-ray.

That'sAllFolks

It looks as though the coupon is one per account. I tried creating another order to see what the difference would be if I bought a few more things and it said the coupon was invalid. Amazon also linked multiple accounts so that I couldn't place the order using another user, even an account I hadn't used in years.

consoleman

Why they couldn't include season 7 in this deal is puzzling? Would jump on this deal if it did. Hate having an incomplete set.

starman9000

Looks like they are sold out?

jjcool

This was the only reason that I didn't get them. I spent a boatload on the original dvd sets, and wasn't going to spend another boatload on the blue ray sets.

That'sAllFolks

I went back and forth on whether to get S7, but in the end it was still a pretty good deal. For the reasons stated above and the fact I at least want every season to be from the same country, I went ahead and ordered it.

Thanks for the heads up on Elephant Man. Got that and Christine as well. Hopefully the savings will overtake my distaste for the Italian packaging, but if not I should be able to recoup my costs. Fantastic deal. Not including postage, S1-6 were under ten bucks a piece. I doubt we'll see that anytime soon in the U.S.


I wonder if the fact I couldn't get this to work is that the promotion ended soon after I placed my order. It did seem to work for the 30% code though. Does Amazon link accounts for the purpose of limiting multiple uses of promos?